Барб Хенди - Between Their Worlds

Something else was missing in Brot’an’s assurance.

What had Osha been doing that only Brot’an seemed to know? Had it been Brot’an who’d given Osha instructions that the young elf had disobeyed in part or whole?

By midday, the isle drew closer beyond the peninsula of the dwarfs, and Magiere turned to head below. She stopped short, flinching on instinct, in finding Brot’an standing silently off behind her.

She hadn’t heard him approach, let alone come up on deck. How long had he been standing there watching her?

His hood was down, and his long, streaked hair blew about his face in the wind, whipping over the four scars that jumped his eye. For all of Leesil and Chap’s hatred and mistrust of him, Magiere had been willing to give the master anmaglâhk some benefit of doubt. Brot’an was nothing if not capable. He had fought for her life before his own people and had helped Leesil get them all out of Calm Seatt.

No, Magiere had no issue with Brot’an’s abilities, as long as a common purpose was shared between them. But what truly motivated him? For whatever war he might be waging against his own caste, he was still Anmaglâhk and a so-called shadow-gripper. Nothing changed that.

The sailors were busy prepping for harbor, and Brot’an stepped to the side rail a few paces off. Magiere realized this was the first moment that he and she had been completely alone together.

“What are you doing here?” she asked bluntly. “It’s more than keeping me out of Most Aged Father’s reach. What else drove you so far from your people? And why would you ever allow Leanâlhâm, let alone Osha, to come with you?”

He gripped the rail, leaning against it as if weary, and looked down on the water rushing past the hull. Magiere couldn’t help noting how large his hands were for an an’Cróan, with long, tan fingers and thick sinews and a few age spots.

“What happened to you up in the cold wastes of the north?” he asked in turn. “Something about you—between you and Léshil—has changed, as well as in the majay-hì, Chap.” Finally, he looked over at her. “What did you have to do to gain that orb of ... Fire, was it?”

Magiere held her tongue.

This was something she hadn’t told anyone. Even she and Leesil had spoken almost nothing about it, and Chap only watched her with as much suspicion as she now watched Brot’an.

The old assassin believed in doing whatever was necessary. Of all people, he might understand—or not. Was it possible his secret was even uglier than hers?

Sooner or later, one of them would make the first slip.

Perhaps he knew, as she did, that this might cause a fall, a shattering of an alliance from which they might not recover. And what had happened to Leanâlhâm’s grandfather, that old healer, Gleann, with his biting sense of humor? What had driven Osha to follow Brot’an, considering the young one no longer looked with blind awe at the shadow-gripper? What had happened to make Brot’an start killing his own kind?

In the bargain he’d just tried to strike, his tale for hers, who would gain the advantage?

They now traveled with the mutual goal of finding the orb of Air and keeping it from falling into the wrong hands at any cost. But whose hands were worse than others by each of their separate judgments?

Magiere glanced again at the scars skipping over Brot’an’s right eye. She wasn’t ready to make such a deal with him. But she knew she couldn’t avoid it much longer—not long at all.